Supreme Magus

"Sure, I still need my hands to quickly draw the runes of multiple spells at the same time without messing up, but it works like a charm. I wonder why no one ever thought about it before." Manohar said.

"Because Light Mastery is hard." Balkor replied.

He was at the level of giving constructs a shape, but alter it after they were formed was still beyond him. He had learned it on his own, without a master, and only practiced it as a hobby after swearing allegiance to Salaark.

After she had taken him under her wing, after becoming a Feather, Balkor believed that his days as a fighter were over. The only magical research he still performed was that with Leegaain.

"What about you?" Manohar asked. "I noticed earlier you had glowing eyes and pulled spells out of your ass like it was nothing."

"The 'psychos' as you call them, are actually Awakened." Balkor enjoyed the shocked expression on Manohar's face while he explained how Awakening worked. The god of death wasn't a member of the Council, so their rules didn't apply to him.

"It sure would explain a lot." Manohar pondered. "I always found ridiculous the theory that magical beasts use a different kind of magic, but I never managed to replicate their technique, even after they explained it to me.

"What intrigues me the most, however, is the ability to replenish the mana at will. Can you teach it to me?"

"I can do neither. I've no idea what Salaark did to me, but I'm just a humble Necromancer whereas you are a Healer." Balkor offered him his hand, hoping that Manohar would find an answer and give Balkor the means to provide his family with a long life.

The god of healing performed every diagnostic spell he knew, but came out empty-handed. Impurities weren't caused by a disease or an anomaly, they were as natural as the bridge on a nose or skin moles.

Conventional magical means were unable to detect their presence or removal whereas regular sight could. It was the reason why true mages who sold their beauty treatments had made up "cosmetic magic" to explain the effects of Invigoration.

Mana cores couldn't be studied either, yet in their case, it depended on the fact that mana cores weren't a physical organ.

Otherwise Manohar would have discovered both phenomenons back when he examined Lith while he was recovering from his attempt at mending Protector's mana core.

"If I didn't see people casting perfectly silent spells with my own eyes, I would never believe your story." Manohar said after a while.

"Me neither." Balkor paid the bill and then the two men left the restaurant for a nearby hotel to get some precious sleep. Manohar shapeshifted his companion into a handsome young man while he retained his feminine appearance.

'He must be born with a silver spoon if he can afford to rent a hotel room in the middle of the afternoon to spend time with his girlfriend. Lucky bastard.' The hotel clerk thought while looking at the youths.

"If I kept us both as girls, we wouldn't have a moment's peace with creeps knocking on our door non-stop, whereas if we were two men, some zealots might have reported us to the guards. You sleep on the floor, by the way." Manohar said.

Luckily for Balkor, the room had a comfortable sofa. Compared to some places where he had slept while he was in hiding, it was akin to a king-size bed.

"I've heard that you recently got the title of Lost Magus, but I couldn't get any information without getting caught. What did you do in my absence?"

"I've shared the basics of my Necromancy techniques with the Blood Desert's academies. I kept the advanced stuff for my children, but it was enough to earn me the title of Blood Magus in the Desert and Lost Magus in this shithole of a country." Balkor said.

Just like Manohar, Balkor had many titles. God of death, kinslayer, and orphan-maker were the most renowned. Lost Magus was just the most recent.

"They really give the title of Magus away these days." Manohar clicked his tongue.

There hadn't been one in over a century and he was proud at the idea that all he had to do to become the first in many generations was to give away a few paltry tricks and perform a few odd jobs.

Now, however, Manohar would be the second.

***

A few hours later, the two left the city of Othre before sunset, under the guise of two burly adventurers. The guards tried to dissuade them, but all it took was for Manohar to be himself for a couple of minutes to get them kicked out and prohibited from returning.

"Where are we going?" Balkor asked.

"Undead Courts are usually located underground and outside the big cities so that they can expand their bases as much as they want without getting noticed. The only access is old school permanent Warp Gates.

"Our destination is a secondary entrance I learned about during my first visit." Manohar said.

"How can you be so sure it still works?"

"Because." Manohar would never admit to having found the base by accident.

A few days ago, he had forgotten to change his appearance before getting drunk. He needed a way to bear the thought of not doing research and a member of the Night Court needed a sacrifice for their leader.

Manohar had been kidnapped, an experience that he found more convenient than it was annoying, and then he had unleashed all his pent-up stress upon the undead as a thank you.

Everything went fine until he faced the Horseman of Night and her Chosen ones. Her ability to cast powerful spells non-stop coupled with Manohar's inability to deal her a lethal wound had forced him to flee.

For the second time in a single night, he had been happy to look like a girl. No one would ever know the truth about his first and hopefully last tactical retreat in his life.

He was certain that the dimensional Gate would still work because it wasn't the one he had crossed to escape, but that they had used to bring him in while he was allegedly drunk and unconscious.

Ancient Warp stations were made by carving the magic circles and dimensional runes on a flat surface. Without a power source, they couldn't be detected with spells nor with Life Vision.

Also, they could bypass modern dimensional magic blocking arrays because they worked according to different principles than those currently in use. Ancient Warp Gates would permanently fuse two points in space, whereas modern ones could connect to multiple locations via dimensional corridors.

It made them more versatile, but also susceptible to being jammed by preventing them from locking on to their exit point's coordinates. Ancient Warp Gates had no such problem. There was no corridor to create, just a door to open.

A door for which Manohar had the key. His nimble fingers were not only able to trace multiple hand signs per second, but they would also spend quite some time exploring other people's pockets whenever the Mad Professor was bored.

He had no problem finding the cracked oak tree that marked the spot of the access point to the Court's base. Manohar took a red mana crystal shaped like a pearl and inserted it in the magic circle.